


That's What the S Stands For

by GoldStarGrl



Category: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Genre: F/M, Set during 10x06
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-20
Updated: 2017-03-20
Packaged: 2018-10-08 09:58:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10384131
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GoldStarGrl/pseuds/GoldStarGrl
Summary: At the end of the world, when the streets of Philadelphia were scorched and flooded, the only things left standing would be Twinkies and cockroaches and Charlie Kelly. Because he wasn't a prince and Dee wasn't a princess. That's for damn sure.





	

**Author's Note:**

> The title is from a goddamn Archie comic because that's who I am now.

Charlie used to watch a lot of cartoons when he was little.

He still does, if he’s being honest. He’s always preferred sitting in front of the TV, with his movies and television shows, to trying to eek his way through the newspaper like some kind of nerd.

He’ll watch anything that comes on; dramas about police officers chasing murderers, talk shows where women with big earrings scream and tackle each other over the couch, boring shit on PBS about how everyone’s blood is made of stars or something.

But his favorite were always cartoons, especially the ones where people sang, sang all the time, even when they turned into frogs and rats and shit. Things were always easier for him to understand when someone explained it to him through a song. And at the end, a beautiful princess, blonde in a long flowing dress, would fall in the arms of a strong, handsome princess and their lives were happy and clean and full.

He always really liked that ending. He  _wanted_ that ending, holding The Waitress in his arms while everyone cheered and threw rose petals and his life just sort of....fixed itself. Clicked into place. Especially is he didn’t think about it for too long after.

The longer the TV was dark, the clearer the world around him became; the more obvious and sharp the truth became, like when the glue or coke or booze wore off. The more obvious it became that he wasn’t a prince.

He knows that, of course. He’s not stupid. He knows he’s not even close.

He’d have to check out the lore, but he was pretty sure most princes didn’t teach themselves how to sew their tattered clothes back together when they were eight years old. They didn’t figure out how to unclog pipes and trip electrical wires by the sixth grade because their weird moms were too poor and too terrified of repairmen to get someone else, someone qualified, to do it.

Princes didn’t stop growing when they were fourteen and they definitely didn’t suspect it was because of their uncles messing around with them all the time so they didn’t sleep for days on end.

Princes didn’t have to learn how to keep themselves alive, against all odds, since before they could crawl, before they were more than a clump of cells.

But Charlie did. Charlie couldn’t read the English language, but he never needed sheet music anyway because he had perfect pitch. He never made it past five-foot-six, but he bit through human bone on more than one occasion, scrappy and relentless. He was made of grime and dirt and glue and rusty nails. At the end of the world, when the streets of Philadelphia were scorched and flooded, the only things left standing would be Twinkies and cockroaches and Charlie Kelly.

He wasn’t a prince; he was a _survivor._

If he was a prince, he never would have ended up on the couch with Dee Reynolds, her rigid, crooked spine poking out as he slid his hands up her shirt, and let her kiss him with their mouths open.

Because Dee wasn’t a princess. That’s for damn sure.

She was blonde, sure, but that’s where the similarities ended. She couldn’t sing for shit. In fact, she drove him crazy when she’d go flat and sharp and back again, every other note, while she washed glasses behind the bar. Her clothes were mismatched and too tight and patterned.

She was loud and way taller than him and everyone laughed at her, even when she was sad or when she was right. Come to think of it, he thinks she might not even be blonde, that she dyed her hair at the same place The Waitress used to go to before she moved into the women’s shelter. It was really light brown, like her brother’s. She couldn’t even get _that_ right.

Princesses didn’t have giant hands and carry baseball bats in their cars just in case they needed _to take a bitch out_.

But Dee did. Dee could claw someone’s eyes out and kick her twin down a flight of stairs and stand there and get called a whore and a bitch and every other nasty name in the book and not flinch, not back down. She was brave, braver than her brother, much braver than Mac, because she didn’t posture about being a badass and make big speeches, she just was. She wasn’t very good at music, but she still listened to him play.

Her hands were digging at his waistband, trying to undo the buttons of his jeans. He sucked in a breath. Dee stopped kissing him, and pressed her forehead against his.

“We good?” And her voice came out all hoarse and breathy.

Charlie took another deep breath, wrapped his arms more tightly around her back, and tipped them horizontal on the couch cushions, so she was underneath him.

Being on top made his brain feel calmer, for some reason.

“I don’t know.” He said finally. Dee let out a little whine of frustration and squirmed underneath him, rutting up against him. Charlie bit his lip, a tingling rushing in between his legs. “Dee, you ever see _Cinderella?”_

Dee blinked, startled, and leaned up to kiss him again - once, twice, little quick ones that felt like sparks on his lips - before letting her head drop back down. “Sure.”

Charlie nodded, deep in thought, as Dee started to suck on the pulse point on his neck. “Did you like it?”

Dee’s brows crinkled in confusion. “It’s a little kid movie, Charlie. It’s dumb as shit.” She went back to his neck, sucking it purple.

He’d have a mark there tomorrow, and the smell of her and her fruity lady shampoo all over his skin. And he’d have had sex, sex for the first time in years, on the couch where his other friends jacked off all the time, and a couple of half-eaten tins of cat food clinked around in his jacket on the floor, and it was decidedly _not_ the end of a fairy tale.

But it felt good. It felt _safe._  He wasn’t shaking or about to throw up in her face. She knew him, _really knew him_ , and he really knew her, and they were kissing anyway.

“Yeah. Guess so.” He dipped his head to kiss her again, his hands raking up through her tangled blonde hair. Dee got his jeans undone and he rolled his hips against her’s, relishing the little gasp she let out.

Surviving was it's own kind of happily ever after. For someone like Charlie. Like Dee. They'd take it any day. 


End file.
